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December 11th was coworker Marcie’s birthday. I promised her some goodies for her birthday, but I’ve been sick for a while. I was finally well enough on Monday to bake for her. She had mentioned that she likes “chocolate with vanilla topping”, so I decided to make her these cupcakes.

I’m normally not a cupcake person, because I don’t really enjoy frosting. Whipped cream, however, I absolutely LOVE!!! 🙂

We had a big plan of using this fondue set from our white elephant party at work. It suggests to use a tea light candle, but coworker Davood deemed it not powerful enough and bought Sterno to use in its place. The Sterno ended up not fitting in the slot and coworker Tim decided to make this alternative from binder clips. Due to a potential fire hazard, we decided to just use a glass bowl!…:P

I know I know…this post is a whole season late…but…but…eh…I have no excuses…:P

So…for Easter…to be a little festive…I made these Easter Nests and gave them away as gifts. These are super easy to make, and they look pretty, and supposedly tastes good (I didn’t try one).

The original recipe uses jelly beans, but I don’t think jelly beans look like eggs, but look like…well…beans. So I wanted to use Cadbury Mini Eggs, but there weren’t any at the Target I went to, so I went with Almond M&Ms. 🙂

Maybe you can make some next Easter! 🙂

Easter Nests (makes 24…adapted from allrecipes)Ingredients:
1 Stick Butter
4 Cups Mini Marshmallows
7 Cups Chow Mein Noodles
72 Almond M&MsDirections:
1. Spray two muffin pans with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large nonstick saucepan, combine marshmallows and butter over medium heat. Stir until the butter and marshmallows have melted.
3. Stir in the chow mein noodles, coat well.
4. Using a large spoon/ice cream scoop, scoop coated noodles into each well of the muffin pan, one by one. Using the back of the spoon/scoop, make a well in the noodles to create a nest (it’s ok if the noodles break a little, the m&ms would cover it, and each strand of the nest shouldn’t be the same length anyway).
5. Place 3 (different colored) m&ms in each nest.
6. Refrigerate overnight until set.
Enjoy!

I had some buttermilk left over from making snickerdoodles, and it is expiring soon, so I had to find a recipe that uses buttermilk. I wanted to find something that can easily be shipped, since that’s basically the only way I can find enough people to eat my creations. 😛 I came across this post on a blog (that no longer seems to be maintained) by a 15 year-old girl. I’m proud of this girl’s baking skills and photography skills. I wish I knew how to bake/cook when I was 15! I remember making the ONLY thing I knew how to make for my friends back then…french toast. And my recipe was tweaked on the spot by them. 😛 When I was 18, I baked my first batch of cookies for my then-boyfriend, now-fiance. They were these Pillsbury dough logs of Snoopy holding a heart. I baked them for him for Valentine’s day, and I was sooo proud. 😛 Good thing my skills have evolved since then, my photography skills are still VERY elementary…gotta work on that. 😛

I didn’t eat any of this cake because I’m currently on a strict diet, but I’m being told that this is very VERY good. 🙂
Mr. Fiance thinks that this tastes the best at room temperature/slightly warm. He tried it out of the oven, at room temperature, out of the refrigerator, and reheated in the microwave after being in the refrigerator. He particularly likes the top of the loaf because it has more of a crispier texture, but overall, he loves it. 🙂

Then, dear friend Alley came over and ate 1/4 of a loaf before dinner, by just picking at loose pieces. She seems to like it too, and she took another 1/4 loaf home for breakfast the next day. 😛

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Quick Bread (such a long name!!…adapted from To Cook, or To Burn)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Dutch-Processed Cocoa
1 Packet Starbucks VIA (I used Columbia Roast)
1/2 tsp Salt
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 Cup Butter, softened
1 Cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 Cup Buttermilk
3/4 Cup Chocolate Chips
Directions:
1. Grease a 9×5-in loaf pan, and preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large bowl, combined flour, cocoa, VIA, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine butter and sugar until creamy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. Once mixture is well-combined, add flour mixture and buttermilk into mixture alternating between each (I added a quarter of the flour mixture, then a quarter of the buttermilk, and repeated).
6. Fold in 1/2 cup of chocolate chips until evenly dispersed.
7. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Top with remaining chocolate chips and continue baking for another 30-35 (or 50-55) minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
8. Place pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes, and cool completely before removing from pan.

Enjoy!!

I made some tweaks to this recipe by adding some Starbucks VIA (or I guess…any other instant coffee/espresso), and added additional chocolate chips. 🙂 I baked two loaves at once, and one loaf was fully done in 35 minutes, and the other one took another 15+ minutes. I’m not sure what happened, because the two loaves are the same size. I also suggest to let the cake cool inside the loaf pan before removing, because i followed the original recipe, and this happened…

This is what my dear recipients received…I bought some round labels to print these…:)

I wanted to bake my dear friend Ana banana bread for her birthday (back in September…yes…this post is late), but the banana that I saved for her gift seemed to have rot (it was pitch-black), so I had to find something else to make. Through our friend Alley, I found out that she also like marble cake, so I decided to make this variation of the marble cake for her…The Zebra Cake.

Although the stripes aren’t very distinct, but I promise that it’s delicious!
Next time, I will use dark cocoa powder, and possibly a bigger scoop, so that the color difference is a little more prominent. 😀

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a large bowl, combined flour and baking powder, set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combined eggs and sugar until creamy.
4. Gradually add in the milk & oil, and beat until well-combined.
5. Add flour mixture into the egg mixture cup by cup, mixing until dry ingredients disappear in between cups. Do not overmix, you don’t want the batter to become too fluffy.
6. Pour about half of the batter into a separate bowl. In one of the bowls, sift in the cocoa powder and mix well. Leave the other batter plain.
7. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper, then oil the paper and the sides of the pan. Dust pan with two tablespoons of sugar (the sugar gives the cake a sweet thin crust…yumm!).
8. Using a spoon/scoop of desired size (the smaller the spoon, the thinner the zebra stripes — I used a 1/8 Cup measuring spoon), scoop plain batter into center of pan, then scoop cocoa batter into the center of the plain batter, and continue alternating between batters until all batter has been transferred into the springform pan.
9. Bake in preheated oven for 40 minutes. To check if the cake is done, insert a toothpick into the center, if it comes out clean, then it’s ready. Remove from oven, and let cool for 10-15 minutes. Remove pan sides, and let cool completely.

After two weeks of not-really-participating, I’m back!! This week’s recipe is Peanut Butter Truffles chosen by Mara of Love Your Mother Earth. The full recipe can be found here.

This was my first time making truffles, and I was surprised at how easy they were to make. There’s basically four steps…heat…then whisk whisk whisk…wait…then roll roll roll…:)

I brought these to my lovely friend Tony’s Birthday Party, and they were pretty well-loved…I think. Even people who don’t normally eat chocolate/sweets enjoyed them. However, it seems like people would prefer it better if it were slightly sweeter…maybe I’ll make it with semisweet chocolate rather than bittersweet.

At first, I was a little skeptical about the salty peanuts and the chocolate, but the feedback I received was that the salt of the peanuts compliments the bitterness of the chocolate really well. Also, there doesn’t seem to be enough peanut butter because nobody knew there was peanut butter. I don’t know if that was intentional (that there isn’t a strong peanut butter taste), or maybe I used the wrong kind of peanut butter. Everyone loved the smoothness and creaminess of the truffle, but didn’t absolutely adore the taste. Overall, the feedback I received was pretty positive, but there are still improvements I’d make to this recipe.

This week’s recipe is chosen by Nicole of Sweet Tooth. I have to say Thank You to Nicole for choosing this yummy recipe. This was the best chocolate cake recipe, ever! I served it to a couple of friends and they absolutely loved it!! Steven’s momma had one without the whipped cream and already LOVED it!!…she loved it even more with the whipped cream.

I made a couple changes to the recipe…
1. I made cupcakes and baked them for 18 minutes.
2. I made a Horlicks whipped cream topping in place of the chocolate malted frosting.
3. I use Maltesers in place of Whoppers.

I made 18 cupcakes with half of the recipe, then I frosted it with a Horlicks Whipped Cream, and finished it off with one Malteser per cupcake.